Legal History : A European Perspective

Hambledon Press, London, first edition, 1991. Cloth, 8vo,. xi, 242 pp. From the blurb: "The history of medieval and indeed later law has mostly been written in national terms with little reference to other countries and other systems. This has restricted the study of comparative legal history and reinforced the prejudices of each nation as to the uniqueness of its code. R.C. Van Caenegem..is one of the few legal historians to have crossed national boundaries successfully. His knowledge of the various codes and customs of the European Continent in general and the Low Countries in particular enables him to bring a fresh eye to the English Common Law, as in his comparison of the administration of criminal law under King Henry II of England and under Philip of Alsace (1157-91) and his discussion of the public prosecution of crime in medieval England. Widening the scale of enquiry he describes the methods of proof in medieval European law, where jury and inquest came to replace the ordeals, and outlines the main features of law in medieval Europe. Nor is his work restricted to the Middle Ages, as is shown by his assessment of the contribution of the Low Countries to legal history, his classification of the three types of law-maker, judges, professors and legislators, and his examination of the influential concept of the Rechtsstaat. Four of these nine essays have not been published in English before." Contents include: Preface; Public Prosecution of Crime in Twelfth-century England; Criminal Law in England and Flanders under King Henry II and Count Philip of Alsace; The Borough Charter of Saint-Omer of 1127 Granted by William Clito, Count of Flanders; Methods of Proof in Western Medieval Law; Law in the Medieval World; Reflexions on the Place of the Low Countries in European Legal History; The English Common Law seen from the European Continent; The Rechtsstaat in Historical Perspective; Max Weber: Historian and Sociologist; Index of Persons and Places; Index of Subjects. As New in dustwrapper.